Established in 2006, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical perspectives and analysis of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society. Scroll down for links to book reviews, Native media, and more.

Smuggling Cherokee is full of powerful insight: part
autobiography, part musing, part outrageous wit, and part punch-in-the-gut startling.
Kim Shuck is a visionary: she knows who she is, what she comes from, and what
she’s been given to do. Her poems are honest and passionate, and, without
polemic, will shatter just about every stereotype about Indians that anyone has
ever espoused: The man asks me, “Do you
speak Cherokee?”But it’s all I ever speakThe end goal of several
generations of asmuggling project.We’ve slipped the barriers,Evaded
border guards.I smile,“Always.”

Some of Kim’s poems are
tenderly, achingly beautiful: The water I
used to drink spent timeInside a pitched basketIt adopted the internal
shapeTook on the taste of pineAnd changed me forever.And for those who
didn’t know, or didn’t care to know, the many faces of depredation:

I call the slave master

Who lost track of my ancestor

A blanket for you

In gratitude.

I call the soldier

With a tired arm

Who didn’t cut deeply enough

Into my great-great grandfather’s chest to kill
clean.

I return your axehead

Oiled and sharpened

Wield it against others with equal skill.

Will the boarding school officer come up?

The one who didn’t take my Gram

Because of her crippled leg.

No use as a servant – such a shame with that
face…

Finally the shopkeeper’s wife

Who traded spoiled cans of fruit

For baskets that took a year each to make.

Thank you, Faith, for not poisoning

Quite all

Of my

Family.

Blankets for each of you,

And let no one say

That I am not

Grateful for your care.

Smuggling Cherokee, as with all of Kim Shuck’s poems, will
resonate with Indian middle and high school readers. Students who are not
Indian may not “get” some of them the first time around, but they will,
eventually, if given the space to sit with them.

Kim Shuck—a poet, teacher, fine
artist and parent of at least three—teaches college courses in Native Short
Literature, creates phenomenal beadwork and basketry, curates museum
collections, teaches origami to young children as an introduction to geometry, grows
vegetables, converses with trees, takes long walks, and meditates while doing piles
of laundry. She won the Native Writers of the Americas First Book Award for Smuggling Cherokee, as well as the Diane
Decorah Award for Poetry, she has a fierce and gentle heart, and I’m honored to
call her “friend.”

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Beverly has been writing spot on reviews of Indigenous books for decades and she didn't get this wrong at all. Personally I love Kim's works and have been very pleased to be able to readmy own poor work in a venue with her in San Francisco once upon a time.If you are expecting a gingerbread cookie cutter stereotypical Indian - look elsewhere - because real human beings are far more complicated and wonderful than any stereotype - and Kim is a real human being who has walked the walk as well as being able to truly express it in the talk.

Buy this book, you won't be disappointed. John D. Berry, American Indian Studies Librarian, UC Berkeley, (retired)

First Peoples listed AICL as one of the Top Five Native Blogs and Podcast to follow. School Library Journal's Elizabeth Burns featured AICL as her Blog of the Day on July 2, 2007, and in 2007, the ALA's Association for Library Service to Children invited Debbie to write a blog post for their site.

American Indian? Or, Native American? There is no agreement among Native peoples. Both are used. It is best to be specific. Example: Instead of "Debbie Reese, a Native American," say "Debbie Reese, a Nambe Pueblo Indian woman."